Finkel Didn't See it Coming

Finkel could not see this. In fact, he chuckled at it.

Cowens? At his height? And weighing maybe 240 pounds after standing in a driving rainstorm? Lining up at center? Finkel, a 7-footer, figured his minutes were secure.

At first, Cowens was not supposed to patrol the middle. Auerbach selected the somewhat obscure Florida State product fourth in the 1970 draft, behind Bob Lanier, Rudy Tomjanovich and Pete Maravich.

With the Seminoles' exposure limited by NCAA probation, Cowens' game was a mystery to some.

Auerbach had it solved. The story circulated in some circles is that Auerbach, on a scouting mission, once left a Seminoles game because he was baffled by Cowens' play. Auerbach actually loved Cowens; the gambit was designed to discourage other teams from drafting his guy.

When training camp started, Celtics coach Tom Heinsohn penciled in Cowens at power forward and another first-year Celtic, 6-9 Garfield Smith, at center. Smith failed to impress; Heinsohn moved Cowens to the pivot and devised a system in which Cowens would function as a "point-center," drawing his counterpart away from the basket.

"Letting him play outside some on the offensive end was our best chance," Heinsohn says. "Defensively, he battled."

Indeed, Cowens led the league in personal fouls with 350 during his rookie season (and with 314 the next season), but he also averaged 17.0 points and 15.0 rebounds and shared Rookie of the Year accolades with Portland's Geoff Petrie. His first year was marked by a memorable fistfight with the Buffalo Braves' Bob Kauffman, underscoring the grit and moxie that Cowens exuded during his 10-year run as a Boston fan favorite.

"It was whack, whack," says Cowens, whose eye swelled up like a cartoon character's after Kauffman landed his blow. "And neither of us moved."

Two years later Cowens was tabbed MVP at a time when the award was voted on by the players. A year after that Boston won the first of two championships with Cowens as its starting center.

The Celtics could have laid off the cleanup crew assigned to sweep the famed parquet floor; Cowens usually wiped it clean with full- length plunges.

"To this day," Finkel says, "people ask me who was the toughest guy to play against, and I tell them nobody was tougher than Dave Cowens. Fortunately for me, he got in a few foul problems, so they kept me around for security. He was going to play his aggressive way no matter what, whether he fouled out in three minutes or played the entire game."